Gov. Mike Beebe doesn't have any immediate plans to schedule executions for seven death row inmates even though the attorney general had asked him to set dates.

Beebe spokesman Matt DeCample on Tuesday said that the governor's decision to hold off on setting execution dates comes as the Department of Correction plans to rewrite its lethal injection protocol and as nine death row inmates challenge the state's new execution law in court.

The Department of Correction plans to rewrite its lethal injection procedure to include a different drug.

The state previously said it planned to use phenobarbital in executions, even though that drug has never been used in a U.S. lethal injection.

I think the Legislature should just re-install hanging as the method of execution. But I guess that then there would be lawsuits questioning the kind of rope used, the proper way of tying the knot, distance of drop and length of the rope.Maybe we should go to a gas chamber using carbon monoxide. It's odorless and painless. You just go to sleep.